


Intoxicated

by spies_never_die



Category: Spies Are Forever
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spies_never_die/pseuds/spies_never_die
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After successfully blowing up yet another warehouse, Agent Mega can't sleep. So the logical solution is to wake up his best friend up and go drinking. Except Owen and Curt have personal history to settle, and alcohol may be the only way to resolve it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intoxicated

**Author's Note:**

> Set in Berlin, in the spring before the beginning of the story in the musical.

“Owen? Are you awake?”

“No.”

Curt couldn’t sleep, and he was bored. It didn’t matter that they’d just aced their biggest mission yet (they’d gotten out of that warehouse in Berlin in six minutes for Christ’s sake), or that they’d celebrated with cocktails with Cynthia at lunch (he’d been tipsy, but not drunk enough to pass out), or even that neither of them had gotten a wink of sleep in three days. Curt couldn’t sleep and it was driving him crazy.

“Well then wake up you lazy sod. I’m bored.”

Owen shifted slightly on the cot bed, jabbing his elbow into Curt’s stomach. Curt nudged him back playfully. A few strands of his usually carefully slicked back hair flopped down over his forehead, making him look five years younger. He wasn’t frowning either. Owen had been frowning a lot over the past few days, and Curt hoped it was only due to the stress of their mission. He tucked Owen’s hair behind his ear.

“And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I dunno.” Curt shrugged. Or tried to. It was hard when you had someone using your shoulder for a pillow. “Wake up and entertain me. Or get up and take me down to the bar.”

“I’m not letting you get drunk Mega.” Owen grumbled. They both knew that would be a bad idea- Curt was a frisky drunk, and after the last time Owen had tried to babysit an inebriated Curt, well… They were less relaxed around each other to say the least. Never mind that they were sharing a bed. There had only been one cot, and they were both too stubborn to allow the other to sleep on the floor.

“No one said I wanted to get drunk.”

“You always want to get drunk.”

“Not when I’m with you.” Owen groaned and tried to roll over, but there wasn’t enough room. “Look, can’t we just go downstairs, get some drinks, and catch up? It feels like forever since we’ve actually talked.” 

That was true. Their last mission had been in Egypt and they hadn’t exactly left off on friendly (read: strictly platonic) terms, which had left Curt too uncomfortable to pursue contact with his partner between jobs. Then they hadn’t been partnered together for four months after a year and a half of solid partnership. When Curt had confronted Cynthia about it she’d waved him off and told him MI6 was busy with their own problems. So, needless to say, they were both surprised when they turned up in the same German tavern looking for the same informant. After that they’d been so caught up in the mission that they simply got on with it. And Curt didn’t know how they were. He wanted to know.

“Why can’t we just talk here?” Owen was whining now. It made him sound like a child. A young, petulant, child. “I don’t want to get up.”

“If we stay here you’ll either fall asleep and leave me alone and bored, or I’ll just keep pestering you and we won’t get any sleep tonight. At all.” There was a pause, while Owen thought and Curt fiddled with the sleeve of his partner’s shirt. “Come one. Please. You fly back to London in the morning and I’ll be on a plane to Florida by 5pm. And I don’t know when we’ll be partnered together again and I want to talk.”

Owen huffed, rubbed his nose with the hand that wasn’t pinned under Curt, and huffed again.

“Fine.” He sighed and started to shift. “But we’re getting something to eat at the bar- I’m not letting you have alcohol on a nearly empty stomach. And you have to make me coffee before we leave.”

Curt laughed and agreed. He stood up, pulling the thin woollen blanket with him. Owen complained and squirmed, but Curt wasn’t risking him falling asleep again so he balled up the blanket and threw it into the far corner of the room.

Owen perked up a bit after he downed the mug of Instant Coffee Curt brewed for him in the small kitchenette down the hall. The hostel they were staying at wasn’t fancy, and the rooms weren’t nearly warm (or spacious) enough, but each floor and hallway had a communal bathroom and kitchen area. It was probably a way they reduced staff- they didn’t need extra room service or catering staff. Trust Cynthia to hole them up in the crappiest hostel in the outskirts of Berlin. By the time they’d gulped down the bitter drinks (it was really cheap, nasty stuff), Curt was feeling more awake than ever and, judging by his vastly improved mood, it seemed Owen was too.

“So,” Owen was pulling on his black cargo pants over his pyjamas but his chest was bare. Curt tried not to look. “Why do you want to talk? Or rather, what do you want to talk about? There must be something specific because otherwise you wouldn’t be forcing me to go drinking at half one in the morning.”

His tone was happy enough, but that was probably just the caffeine acting on his brain. Curt already felt uneasy. They’d been doing okay this week, with the safety of the safety of Europe to focus on, but now there was nothing. No safety briefing to mull over, or blueprints to discuss to distract them from talking about what happened in Egypt. He wasn’t even sure whether Owen wanted to talk about it. He didn’t know how Own felt- that wasn’t a problem he’d had to worry about himself.

“Us.” He said after a long pause. He’d wanted it to sound nonchalant, wanted it to sound like he wasn’t harbouring whatever it is he was harbouring. “I want to know if we’re okay.”

“Of course we are.” Owen scoffed in that haughty private school voice. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Curt shook his head. He wasn’t going to talk about this now. Whiskey was needed before even starting this conversation, and even then he’d probably need to nurse another to get him through it.

“Not now. I’ll meet you in the bar down the street. The one with the neon yellow signs.” 

He didn’t wait for Owen to reply, but he heard him huff in response. Owen huffed a lot.

***

“So.” Owen sat down in the booth Curt had claimed with two gasses of whiskey on a tray and two sausages (Curt guessed they were Wurst of some kind. He hope they weren’t curried) wrapped two thirds in crispy pastry. His tone was mocking but not cruel, and underneath the hard line of his brow his eyes were worried. Curt wondered if this was going to be another fuck up. “Are you going to spit it out? Or do you need more liquor?”

Curt didn’t need any more. He’d already had two shots of vodka before Owen even showed up and was on his second Whiskey on the Rocks. Owen looked at him disapprovingly as Curt reached for his third, but he was still sober enough to talk.

“We need to talk about Egypt.”

“Egypt? I’ve heard it’s the peak of tourist season- wouldn’t be wise to go on holiday there now.”

“Fuck off.” One sip into this whiskey and he hadn’t even said anything important yet. “I meant, we need to talk about the last time we were on a mission together. In Egypt. When we… well…”

His partner raised a finely arched eyebrow. The faux leather seat was slippery against Curt’s trousers and sticky against his hands. Or maybe his hands were just sweaty.

“We do? I thought we entered into a silent agreement to not speak about it.” Another sip of whiskey. It was beginning to burn the back of his throat. “At least I thought we had when you decided not to call me.”

“I thought it was better to not call you. We needed to talk about it in person. And the agency seemed hell bent on keeping us apart for a bit.”

“What even is there to talk about?” Owen huffed and downed half his glass. He winced- Owen had never really liked whiskey and he only drank it when Curt asked for it- and decided to bide his time tucking into his sausage instead. “You got drunk and kissed me. There’s nothing else to say is there?”

This wasn’t how it usually went. Usually Curt was the one who had to bring up the kissing, as the others had always been too embarrassed. That was the problem with being attracted to men who thought they were straight.

“You kissed me back.” He mumbled into his glass.

“Well we were both drunk and we were both there. It was a tad inevitable that something was going to happen between us.”

“You weren’t drunk Owen. I know you weren’t.” Owen looked down at his sausage. He wasn’t eating any more, just pulling the pastry off in tiny flakes. “You hadn’t had a drink all evening. Cynthia asked you to keep an eye on me because I was upset about letting the Hungarians escape with the artillery shipment. I didn’t see you with a drink all evening.”

“Why are you bringing this up now Curt? It’s been four months. I thought you’d gotten over it- thought we both had- and we could go back to being friends.”

There was barely any alcohol left in Curt’s glass now and Owen’s was all gone. Silently, he cursed himself for not saving the shots from earlier and for not pacing himself better. His head spun slightly, and when he looked at his partner’s face he couldn’t decide if Owen looked angry or worried or annoyed. A mix of all three, mostly likely.

“Because I want to know if we’re just going to do that.” Owen’s hand was on the table, just there. Curt took it and squeezed it feebly. It felt like such a lame gesture, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up to Owen’s dark brown eyes. “Move on.”

“What do you mean?”

“Owen, I’m gay.”

Owen squeezed his hand back. Curt’s breath caught in his throat.

“I know Curt.” His voice was softer than it had been since they’d left their room. It was reminder of why they grew so close in the first place; Owen always seemed to be able to understand him. He wondered how long he’d known. “Do you think I haven’t kissed boys before?”

He’d never even contemplated it really. Owen had always struck him as a ladies’ man, and most of the time he was surrounded by at least three women, orbiting him like satellites. Or moons. Curt couldn’t blame them. At first he’d found Owen’s over competence and arrogance annoying, which was as hypocritical as it could get seeing as he was always being called that. But after the novelty of arguing ran out, they began relying on each other. And once he’d began to lean on Owen, it was all too easy for Curt to see past his arrogant exterior. It was all too easy to admire him. And it was all too easy to want more.

“I don’t know.” Curt admitted. “I don’t usually let myself consider an alternative.”

“An alternative to what?”

Curt ignored him. “So do we move on? Do we pretend it never happened, and continue being the greatest spies in the world?”

“Is there another option?” Owen had olive skin. It complemented Curt’s pale complexion nicely. Or maybe it was the lurid bar lighting. He squeezed Curt’s hand again. Coffee and cream.

“I don’t know.” Curt felt weak. He never admitted he didn’t know something. It was much easier to bluff your way through.

“Do you want there to be?”

“What?” His head snapped up. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Owen took his other hand from across the table. Curt couldn’t get to his drink, but he didn’t want to. “That I did kiss you back. I’m saying that if you like me like that, and if I like you like that, then why pretend it never happened? Why not try… something?”

“If either of our agencies find out we’re fired. Worse than fired. We know things civilians aren’t supposed to know. They’d kill us.”

“So they won’t know.” Owen was smiling. He could hear it in his voice, and that was enough for Curt to look up. His gaze met brown eyes. It was like catching a rock on a stormy shore. “We won’t let them know.”

He squeezed Owen’s hands. Owen squeezed back. His palms were warm, unlike Curt’s which had been cold and clammy, and were now just sweaty. It can’t have been pleasant, but Owen didn’t let go. He wanted to ask Owen if he was leaning on Curt as much as Curt was leaning on him.

“Secret Agents…” Curt breathed. It was impossibly cheesy. Yes, it was scary, but they’d pulled off more impossible schemes, with even higher stakes before.

Then again, they’d never been this personally involved in a scheme before. It had never been their lives on the line before.

“Do you want it?” Owen asked. Breathless. Wanting. Curt hadn’t even realised they were leaning towards each other until their noses bumped. He began to feel a buzz in the back of his skull- he was more than a little tipsy. 

“I want you.” Curt breathed. Closing his eyes. Pulling Owen’s hands toward him. The table was narrow, and neither of them needed to stand up. Owen slid one hand up Curt’s arm to his shoulder, and then to the back of his neck. Fingers creeping into the soft short hair at the nape of his neck.

“I’m here.” Curt realised he didn’t care that he was drunk, or that Owen could have been tipsy. Owen wanted him. He’d kissed him back in Egypt. He’d wanted him.

So he leaned forward. It only took an inch for their lips to touch. Curt let go of Owen’s other hand and it found its way to the side of his neck and stayed there. He let his hands frame Owen’s face with his fingers splaying back into his now-slightly-messier hair.

Curt had always thought that when you kissed The One for the first time, the world was supposed to melt away, leaving just you and your partner alone for the rest of eternity- he didn’t know if Owen was The One, but it was the closest he’d gotten. But the world didn’t melt away, and instead he found himself noticing everything. In the split second between their lips meeting and closing his eyes, Curt noticed the lack of people in the bar- there were only two: the drunk man in the corner and the surly blonde girl behind the beer taps, and neither of them gave them a second glance. He noticed the soft jazz music playing from overhead speakers and he noticed Owen softly humming along from somewhere inside his chest. He hadn’t known Owen liked jazz.

Owen himself tasted like whiskey and smelled of coffee. Bitter, but comforting. In a weird way. Owen’s hair was now significantly messier than it had been in their room; it flopped forwards and brushed against Curt’s forehead. It tickled like butterfly kisses.

The kiss itself only lasted a few seconds. There was no tongue and no power struggle that left them breathless. It wasn’t a dramatic ‘you’re mine now’ kiss, and nor was it a sloppy, drunken mess like last time. But it left Curt wanting more, and judging by Owen’s smirk as he pulled away he might not get it.

“Do you want it Mega?” he asked wryly. Their faces were still only inches apart and their hands were still glued to each other, so there wasn’t anything to act coy about. Owen would know Curt’s answer before he even opened his mouth but he said it anyway.

“Yes.”

He got a kiss in return.

***

Once outside, Owen lit a cigarette.

“Those things will kill you, you know.” Curt teased him, lacing their fingers together. It was only a five minute walk back to the hostel, but neither of them were in any rush. Owen had already decided he was going to miss his early morning flight. They weren’t entirely sure where they were going from there, but they deserved a lie in.

“Nah.” Owen puffed on the cigarette. The smoke curled around his head like a halo. “I reckon you’ll probably kill me before these do.”

Curt laughed dryly and pulled Owen slightly closer. They often joked about being the cause of each other’s deaths- they blamed it on their risky profession- but he didn’t want to joke about death. He wanted another kiss but that probably wouldn’t happen until they got back to the room. Their room. Their room with a crappy little cot bed and basin full of cold water.

“Hey Owen?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens now? Will you come back to America with me- at least for a while? Do you reckon Cynthia will think it’s odd that you came back with me instead of going via London? What if she asks where you’re staying?”

Owen squeezed his hand. Curt thought his skin looked even paler in the moonlight, while Owen stayed tan as ever. He was glad for the warmth though- it was a chilly night.  
“I’m not leaving you just yet Curt. As for Cynthia, I’ll tell her I need to do some collection and filing of paperwork for MI6, which should take about a week to get done properly. I’ll tell her you offered me a place on your couch for the week so I don’t have to pay for a hotel. And I’ll tell her that the agency changed their mind at the last minute and it was easier to just switch my flight.”

“But what if she asks MI6?” Owen laughed and dropped his cigarette on the sidewalk, stubbing it out with the toe of his boot.

“She won’t Mega. I’ll make sure of that.”

“But-“

Owen shut him up with a kiss. They were outside the hostel doors and Curt wanted nothing more than to drag Owen up those stairs to their room, lock the door, and… no.

His head was muddled. He couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol, or Owen, or both but he wasn’t thinking straight (not that he ever thought straight), and he knew he didn’t want to go any further with Owen while he was drunk. 'I want to be sober for that' he thought briefly. 'I’ve waited long enough.'

He felt himself being pushed gently backwards against the cold stone wall. Owen braced his left arm against the bricks by Curt’s head and curled his right arm around Curt’s waist. Their height difference had never bothered him much before, but now Curt wished he had an extra inch or two so Owen didn’t have to bend down to kiss him. He definitely didn’t want to stand on tip toe. Instead he threw his arms around Owen’s neck. He smiled against Curt’s lips.

“We should head inside.” Owen murmured after he pulled away. Curt was panting, but nodded. “It’s easily five or ten below, and I don’t want to lose my first boyfriend to hypothermia.”

“Fahrenheit?”

“Celsius.”

“Bloody Brits.”

“Fucking Americans.”

Curt laughed. Owen winked. First boyfriend? He wanted to ask if Owen had had any girlfriends, but it was too late at night and too early in their relationship. Sleepily, he let his partner lead them back to the shabby cot bed. He let his partner remove his coat and shoes and sit him down on the bed before watching his partner remove his own outdoor clothing and cargo pants. He let his partner lie him down and scoop him into his arms. Before Curt had insisted Owen lie with his head on his shoulder as there wasn’t much of a pillow, but now he was too tired and too intoxicated to argue.

Intoxicated. 'Funny word', he thought. 'I’m drunk, but it’s not just the alcohol. It’s Owen. I’m drunk on him'.  
The thought made him giggle. Owen’s shoulder smelled like sweat and shaving cream and his shirt smelled like it hadn’t been washed for a week (it hadn’t) but Curt didn’t mind. Owen smelled like Owen.

“G’night Mega.” Curt felt his hair part slightly with Owen’s breath. He felt his chest rise and fall. It was comforting.

“G’dnight.” He breathed.


End file.
